The present invention relates to a receiver for a heat exchanger and a heat exchanger, especially a condenser, equipped thereof.
Condensers are devices that condense into liquid, a high-temperature and high-pressure refrigerant gas discharged from a compressor, by dissipating the heat of the refrigerant gas to a cooling fluid, the air for instance, or water according another embodiment not represented.
It is known condensers comprising a core made of headers and parallel tubes constituting a path to drive the refrigerant fluid which flows into the tubes. The tubes are spaced to allow the circulation of coolant between them, and then the heat exchange. A condenser may be divided into passes, made of several tubes, the fluid flowing successively from one pass to the other in serpentine way thanks to baffles located in the headers. In normal way, refrigerant flows from top to bottom and the last pass is located on the condenser bottom. The last pass can be, for instance, a subcooling pass for the refrigerant.
It is also known to integrate a receiver in the condenser. The receiver has several functions among which to constitute a reserve of refrigerant fluid. It is generally located on a side of the heat exchanger core along one of its headers. It collects the refrigerant fluid coming from the condensing part of the core and distributes it back to the core in the subcooling pass.
Several solutions to attach the receiver to the core and to establish a communication for the refrigerant fluid there between are known.
According to a first solution, the receiver is attached to the core by brackets and the condenser comprises hoses between the receiver and the header it is attached to. Thanks to such solution the receiver can be positioned according to a great variety of packaging constraints. Nevertheless, it requires many assembling operations leading to long cycle times and high costs.
According to a second solution, the receiver can be brazed to the header together with the condenser core. The assembling costs are hence decreased but such solution generates other difficulties linked to brazing complexity.
According to a third solution, the header is provided with a socket or flange which is brazed thereto and the receiver is attached to such flange. The flange further integrates channels establishing a communication between the core and the receiver for the fluid refrigerant. Such solution is an interesting compromise between the first and second solutions presented above.
Nevertheless, the receivers proposed today in that view remains rather heavy, especially as regards the bottom part of the receiver which is used to attach it to the flange.